The contamination of food and water poses a major health risk in both developed countries and third world countries, and is thought to be responsible for millions of human deaths and illnesses annually. Moreover, contamination to food and water also threatens animal health, including livestock and aquatic ecosystems.
Generally, these illnesses are caused by microorganism contamination, such as bacteria, parasites or viruses. With respect to food production, the complexity and the number of parties involved provide an abundant number of opportunities for unintentional contamination, and the potential and unfortunate interplay of terrorism and food supply. Surface and ground water generally become contaminated by pets, livestock or wild animal defecating in or near a water source, while run-off from landfills, septic fields, sewers and agricultural lands also contribute to water contamination. Irrespective of the type and source of contamination, it can be difficult for individuals to determine if food or water is contaminated because it may appear and taste fine, but still cause illness and ultimately death. Thus, monitoring for microbial contamination of food, water, non-sterile products, or the environment is critical to public health on a global scale
Therefore, there continues to be a need for alternative compositions and methods for improved, cost-effective and efficient monitoring for microbial contamination in both food and water. The present disclosure meets such needs by providing novel aptamer reagents with high specificity and affinity for cell surface epitopes on a microorganism for the capture and enrichment of a microorganism present at low cell densities and for the direct detection (e.g., by qPCR or fluorescent staining) without the need for culture or cell lysis.